Tag: Death Talk

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How to deal with death as part of life

Everyone must figure out their own way to handle the fear of death.

[S]ince he watched his mother drop dead, Richard Bridgman’s fear of death has left him emotionally paralyzed.

It was right around Thanksgiving — nearly 45 years ago — and Bridgman was sleeping overnight on his mom’s living room couch.

“In the middle of the night, she walked into the room and said, ‘Richard, I’m dying,’” recalls Bridgman, who tried to reassure his mom that she’d be okay. But his mother, who had a heart condition, was suffering a massive heart attack. “She looked at me and fell over on her head. I didn’t know what to do. She was dead.”

Death haunted much of Bridgman’s early years. His stepfather died when Bridgman was 15. His father, an alcoholic, died when Bridgman was 17. And Bridgman was 26 when his mom died before his eyes. Now, 72, and long retired from the bill collection business he once owned in the Springfield, Ill., area, he has spent most of his adult years trying to cope with — if not overcome — his immense fear of death.

“Death became an obsession,” he said. “No matter where I went or what I did, death was always in the back of my mind.”

Most people prefer not to think about death, much less plan for it. In a tech-crazed world, where time is commonly measured in 140 characters and 6-second sound bites, life would appear to be dissected into so many bite-sized morsels that discussion of death doesn’t even seem to fit into the equation.

“Everybody has a fear of death, no matter what culture, religion or country they come from,” said Kelvin Chin, author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death” and founder of the Overcoming the Fear of Death Foundation and the non-profit turningwithin.org. “Fear is simply an emotion caused by the anticipation of unhappiness.”

But wait. What if death isn’t actually unhappy? What if it simply — is? For Bridgman, whose fear of death was overwhelming, that simple question was a critical step in learning to emotionally deal with death. That question was posed to him by Chin, who he discovered via a Google search. Several supportive phone consultations with Chin — combined with a simple meditation process that Chin teaches — have helped to keep Bridgman’s fears under control.

“I spent so much money on psychiatrists and psychotherapists — none of them did any good,” says Bridgman. But Chin steered Bridgman towards meditation. “Meditation is better than medicine,” Bridgman said.

Everyone must figure out their own way to handle the fear of death. One expert, who overcame her own fear through years of attending to the dying, says death is rarely the terrible thing that most folks fret about.

“Death is usually a peaceful process,” explains Donna Authers, a professional caregiver, motivational speaker and author of the book “A Sacred Walk: Dispelling the Fear of Death and Caring for the Dying.”

“Very few people die screaming. They just go to sleep.”

But it took Authers years to learn the lesson that death need not be frightening. As a child, death haunted her. When she was two years old, her father was killed in World War II. Her mother, who had remarried, died on Authers’ fifth birthday. “Instead of a birthday party, I woke up to the worst day of my life,” she said. Her grandfather committed suicide when Authers was 15.

It was Authers’ grandmother — while dying from cancer — who taught Authers the most critical lesson in accepting death’s inevitability. Authers brought her grandmother home to tend to her during her final days. But her grandmother could sense her granddaughter’s terrible fear.

That’s when her grandmother took her by the hand and, unafraid, reminded Authers, “Death is part of life. You, too, will be where I am someday, and you can’t face death with fear,” she said. That changed everything. Seeing her grandmother bravely face death caused her own fears to dissolve. “I was no longer afraid of death and dying,” recalls Authers.

Authers ultimately left her job as an IBM marketing executive to become a caregiver. Through the years, she has found that faith is the most important quality among those who face death without fear. “People who have faith in something don’t grieve like those who have no hope,” said Authers.

Increasingly, however, Chin has found that Millennials — more than any other demographic — fear death the most.

“It’s the downside of social media,” said Chin. “The bombardment and speed of communication leads to an overload that can trigger a fear of death.”

Perhaps even the world of politics can play a role, suggests Sheldon Solomon, professor of psychology at Skidmore College and author of “The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.”

In times of political upheaval— particularly when people are reminded of their mortality — the fear of death increases even as they tend to be attracted to political figures who promise them more security, said Solomon, who has conducted numerous experiments on this issue.

“When people are reminded of their own mortality, in an effort to bolster faith in their own view of reality, they become more hostile to anyone who is different.”

Even then, says Solomon, perhaps nothing alleviates a dying person’s fear of death more than love.

A terminally-ill grandmother he knew was distraught at the prospect of death. No doctor and no medicine could help her. Then, she received a short phone call from her granddaughter, begging her for her cupcake recipe. “No one can make them like you,” her granddaughter said.

“That call did more in five minutes than anything else could have,’” says Solomon. “It reminded the grandmother that she will live on in the memories of the people she loves. That was all she needed to know.”

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How young children understand death – and how to talk to them about it

Some big questions.

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“Mummy, what happens after we die?” Many parents have been asked this kind of question, and it is often difficult to know how best to reply. Should you be open about your own beliefs – whether they are religious, agnostic or atheist? And is it OK to sugarcoat? Recent research in developmental psychology provides some advice.

Death is a fascinating subject to many children, as shown, for example, when they come across a dead animal or plant. Their observations and questions show a healthy curiosity as they strive to make sense of a complex world.

Yet to many parents, death is a taboo subject for children. But children’s questions actually provide an excellent opportunity to encourage their inquisitiveness and to support their learning about, for example, biology and the life cycle. However, there are situations when you need to show great sensitivity.

What children know

Most preschoolers do not grasp the biological basis of death and tend to believe that death is a different state of life, like a prolonged sleep. At this age, children often say that only old and ill people die. They also think dead people feel hungry, need air and can still see, hear or dream. To gain a mature, biological understanding of death, children must acquire knowledge of a few key facts about death.

Typically, between the ages of four and 11, children gradually come to understand that death is universal, inevitable and irreversible, follows the breakdown of bodily functions, and leads to the cessation of all physical and mental processes. That is, by the age of 11, most children grasp the idea that all people – including their loved ones and themselves – will die one day and remain dead forever.

However, some young children will understand these components sooner, and here experience and appropriate conversations are influential. For example, those who have already experienced the death of a loved relative or pet, and those with more experience of the life cycle through interacting with animals, tend to have a better grasp of the death concept.

Another predictor of relatively early understanding is parents being better educated, irrespective of the child’s intelligence. This suggests that parents can and do help their child’s understanding of death by providing appropriate opportunities and clearly explaining the biological facts during the primary years.

Religion and culture also play an important role in shaping children’s beliefs. During their conversations with adults, children often encounter biological facts but also “supernatural” beliefs about the afterlife and spiritual world. Developmental psychologists have discovered that as children grow older and grasp the biological facts about death, they typically develop a “dualist” view that combines biological and supernatural beliefs.

For example, ten-year-olds may recognise that dead people cannot move or see because their bodies have stopped working, but at the same time believe that they dream or miss people.

Honesty and sensitivity

Recent research on children’s understanding of death has a number of implications for how best to discuss this complex and often emotionally charged subject.

The most important thing is to not shy away from the topic – don’t ignore a child’s questions or try to change the subject. Instead, see them as an opportunity to nurture their curiosity and contribute to their gradually gaining a better understanding of the life cycle. Similarly, listening to what children ask and say about death will enable you to gauge their feelings and level of understanding, and to work out what requires explanation or reassurance. An oversimplified message can be uninformative and patronising, and an overly complex explanation might add to confusion and possible distress.

For example, offering detailed information or graphic details about how someone died or what happens to dead bodies may cause unnecessary worry and fear, especially in younger children. For some children, the idea that a dead person continues to watch over us can be reassuring, but for others it might be a source of confusion and distress.

Another key aspect is to be honest and avoid ambiguity. For example, telling a child that a dead person is “asleep” could lead them to believe that dead people can wake up. Research has shown that children who understand the normality, inevitability and finality of death are likely to be better prepared for, and better able to make sense of death when it happens. Indeed, children with such understanding actually report less fear of death.

Being honest also means acknowledging the uncertainties and mystery of death and avoiding being dogmatic. It is important to explain that there are some things that nobody can know, and that it is normal to hold apparently inconsistent beliefs simultaneously. However strong your religious or atheist beliefs, acknowledge that others may hold very different views. This approach will encourage tolerance of others’ beliefs, support children’s naturally strong drive to make sense of the world and inspire an appreciation of its wonder and mystery.

Perhaps the most important thing is to acknowledge that sadness is normal, and that it is natural to worry about death. We all feel sad when a loved one dies but we gradually overcome our sadness as life goes on. To ease concern, you could offer realistic reassurance. Point out, for example, the likelihood that they and their loved ones will continue to live for a very long time.

If a child is coming to terms with the loss of a loved one, or is dying herself, great sensitivity is required. This does not mean being less honest or open. Children manage their anxiety and fears better when they can rely on truthful explanations about the death of a loved one. For children who know that they are dying, it is important to provide them with opportunities to ask questions and express their feelings and wishes.

Whatever the circumstances, children try to fill in the gaps in their knowledge if truthful information is kept from them. Often their imagination can be far more scary, and potentially far more damaging, than the reality.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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I Graduated Law School — & Decided To Become A “Death Doula”


 
By Annie Georgia Greenberg

“Death is inevitable. My life span is ever decreasing. Death comes whether or not I am prepared.” These are three of the nine contemplations on death written by Buddhist teacher Atisha — and Alua Arthur reads them to clients during death meditations. As a death doula and owner of Going With Grace, an end of life and death care company, Arthur (who graduated from law school before shifting to work in the death industry) facilitates these sessions to help people who are uncomfortable with the idea of death or dying.

“Death meditation is an opportunity for people that are struggling with some fears around death and dying to confront those fears head-on,” Arthur says. “It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s an opportunity to really think about the body’s eventual decline, and to go there to see what the discomfort is, so that we can then talk about that and process that. It’s intended to soften the fear around death.”

And, true to her claim, Arthur’s work is meant to soften fears around death. “Doula” is a word derived from a Greek term meaning, “women who serve.” As a death doula, she works with clients to plan for the final stage of their lives, holds space to support them emotionally through their deaths, and ensures their wishes are met.

Arthur developed a nine-part “Advanced Care Directive” that allows clients to list how they’d like to be cared for in the event of terminal illness. It includes everything from personal grooming preferences to thoughts on life support. By filling out Arthur’s document, a client can clearly state how they’d like their social media to be handled in the event of their death and whether they’d prefer to be embalmed, buried in a bio-urn (a seed pod for ashes that nourishes the earth and grows into a plant), or anything in between. She’s helped prepare for end of life with healthy millennials, large family groups, and even her own father.

Alua Arthur

Of course, when it comes to her own funeral, Arthur, who thinks about death “all day, every day” knows exactly what she wants. If possible, she’d prefer to die outside, at sunset. And she wants to be buried in a pink or orange raw silk shroud. Her funeral will be a party filled with music (Michael Jackson is a must on the playlist). She’d like her jewelry — an extensive collection of bangles and big earrings — hung on trees and for attendees to take the pieces they like. This tendency toward bright colors, generosity and liveliness mirrors Arthur’s sensibility in life. Her smile is contagious. Arthur’s yellow and magenta and green African-print frocks are a far cry from the drab, stereotypical wares one might associate with the death industry. In fact, there’s nothing grim about her or the work she does.

Yes, Arthur’s death consultations can be heartfelt and tearful to be sure, but, as she puts it, “death can definitely be funny.” And so, she approaches each conversation with a seemingly effortless but effective sense of levity. Arthur is part of a new trend in the death industry that favors pre-planning, personalization, and, ultimately, the normalization of death as a topic of conversation. In Arthur’s vision of the world, everyone over the age of 18 has an end of life plan and is willing to talk openly about death, she says.

“I think people don’t talk about death, because we’re not really comfortable with it,” she says. “Yet, whenever I talk about my work, people always talk to me about death… I think my work gives people permission to talk about this thing that we all want to talk about anyway, yet we’re just not doing.”

So, while many of us may not all be ready to recite the nine contemplations just yet, we can take comfort in the words Arthur uses to signs off on all of her Advanced Care Directives: “Yes, one day you and I will die, but before that day, let us live.” When she says those words out loud, she can’t help but smile.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How one student uses dance to understand the biology of grief

Erin Dong ’18 performs during the American Dance College Association Conference in Boston, which she attended in February.

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[E]rin Dong ’18 knew from a young age that she wanted to study biology. While at the University of Rochester, she supplemented her coursework with stints as a volunteer in rehabilitation physical therapy at the Medical Center and as a research assistant in the School of Nursing. But what surprised her during her time at Rochester was that she also developed a love of dance, leading her to double major in both biology and dance.

For her senior capstone project, Dong created a dance called “The Beautiful Awful: Experiencing Grief Through Movement” that combines aspects of both her majors. Along the way, she learned important lessons about the creative process, taking risks, and the wisdom that can come from failure.

“I only started dancing when I came to college,” Dong says. “But I love how it’s this universal way of expression. In my senior project, I wanted to help people remember the loss they felt and experienced, connect to others who also shared that, and allow them to feel the emotions in their entire bodies, not just in their heads.”


 
Dong started her project by examining other performances, specifically Bill T. Jones’s piece “Still/Here” and “Dying and dying and dying” by dance company MBDance, who visited Rochester in January. For his piece, Jones hosted a series of “survivor workshops” with the terminally ill and had them map out their lives and deaths by moving in a space. “Dying and dying and dying” depicted various endings in life, such as the death of an individual and of a culture.

Inspired by Jones, “I realized that if I wanted to make something that spoke to a larger audience, I had to first find a topic that resonated with me,” Dong says.

It was around this time that her beloved grandmother, Peggy, passed away. Dong was at a dance conference in Boston, during which she saw a dance by students at Bates College called “That’s All, Folks.” The choreographers had asked people from all different backgrounds how they would spend their last days on Earth. The dancers’ movements mirrored the answers, which ranged from “sitting and watching the sun rise” to “eating a gallon of ice cream with my childhood sweetheart.”

“Seeing this dance is when I finally cried about my grandmother, because I was able to connect to the joy, but also the pain and the sadness, evident onstage,” Dong says. “The piece really coaxed out my emotion and gave me a safe space to feel.”

Dong realized she wanted to create a similar kind of space in her own dance—one in which people would have an outlet to grieve freely. She turned to her knowledge of anatomy and physiology to create a piece that incorporated not only the emotional aspects of the grieving process, but the physical symptoms as well.

The body is the dancer’s instrument; therefore, a sound understanding of the body’s anatomy, mechanics, and the functions involved in movement are important in dance, says Anne Harris Wilcox, a senior lecturer in the Program of Dance and Movement at Rochester and Dong’s faculty mentor.

“Both dance and biology foster the principle of connection, proving that nothing works in isolation. Any effect on a part of the body, affects the whole,” Wilcox says. “Erin’s second major, biology, is a fabulous partner to her dance and choreography research; it helped her appreciate the multi-dimensional understanding of the human body and its inter-connected systems.”

Dong researched the somatic symptoms associated with grief, such as fatigue, chest pains, and shortness of breath. During her first attempt to choreograph the dance, she used the stage to represent the human body and dancers to represent different emotions. She wanted audience members to be up on stage and have the dancers talk and interact with them.

“When I tried to put it all together, it turned out to be an epic fail,” Dong says, laughing. “I was trying to do too much, and I lost sight of the human-nature side of my piece.”

Dong overhauled the project to better satisfy her vision of a piece that would walk the audience through the grieving process, similar to the way a counselor might guide patients through talk therapy.

“It’s rare to see someone have the courage to scrap an idea and keep digging, but that’s exactly what Erin did,” Wilcox says. “She saw the wisdom in ‘failing’ and learned that knowing what doesn’t work is just as important in any process.”

In her second attempt, Dong collected qualitative data, asking individuals to describe their emotions and bodily sensations when they first heard they had lost a loved one. She modeled each section of her new dance after a different element of grief and included spoken text, taken verbatim from what people had told her when recounting their own experiences.

She incorporated lighting design to suggest various emotional elements: dancers are at times isolated, shadowed, or completely removed from the light. “The Beautiful Awful” also has the dancers move into the audience, the opposite of Dong’s original idea to have the audience move to the dancers. “You never ask a grieving person to meet you where you are,” she explains. “You want to meet them where they are in their grief.”

The final product is a meditation on grief that brings together science, emotion, and creative movement. But it’s the lessons she learned from the process that Dong will carry with her as she begins graduate studies. This summer she starts a three-year, doctoral-track program for physical therapy at the University of Pittsburgh.

“When it comes to dance you have to learn how to take risks and do new things, and that also translates to the rest of life,” she says. “Coming into college as a freshman, I was really timid and not very confident in myself. Dance has given me a lot more self-assurance.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Going Green After Kicking the Bucket

How to Die Sustainably

By Katie Conley

The Sustainability of Death

In their 1976 classic, (“Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” Blue Öyster Cult sang that “40,00 men and women” die every day. Today, that number is more like 151,600. That’s a lot of bodies, and frankly, we’re running out of places to store them all. Ignoring sustainability entirely, how we dispose of our deceased is becoming a big problem. In Sweden, for instance, your grave is dug up twenty-five years after burial, your corpse is pushed farther into the ground, and another body is added on top—there simply isn’t space for new bodies. The Swedes are known for their compartmentalization (I see you, IKEA! Loveyour meatballs!) but when it comes to our final resting place, there’s got to be a better way.

Environmental activist Edward Abbey, famously buried in the desert in a sleeping bag, stated that “[After] the moment of death . . . we should get the hell out of the way, with our bodies decently planted in the earth to nourish other forms of life—weeds, flowers, shrubs, trees, which support other forms of life, which support the ongoing human pageant—the lives of our children. That seems good enough to me.” And today, you can do just that. Although cremation remains the number one choice of disposal in North America, and traditional burial a close second, green practices are quickly catching up.

Cremation does indeed create less waste than a traditional casket and land plot, but the “natural gas that goes into a cremation is [equivalent to] two full tanks of an SUV, or a 500-mile car trip,” as mortician, author and “Good Death” advocate Caitlin Moran told Jezebel. Perhaps more disturbing is the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere during cremation due to…brace yourself…our dental fillings. You don’t see a pamphlet about thatat the dentist’s office. Bestselling author Mary Roach notes in Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadaversthat “the average amount of mercury released into the atmosphere” is “three grams per cremation.” Maybe we all should have flossed more?

If you lived your life sustainably, why wouldn’t you die sustainably? We’ve provided an intro to green burials, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can be buried on a funeral pyre, thanks to the help of organizations like the Crestone End-of-Life Project; you can donate your body to science, perhaps at The Body Farm, where your decomposition will help forensic scientists solve crimes; or you can go full-on Edward Abbey and decompose back to the earth. (The legality on that last one is iffy, but hey, chase your bliss). We’ve all got to go sometime. Know your options, create a plan with your loved ones and research, research, research. Make your memorialization an eco-conscious testament to the way you lived your life.

What Constitutes a Green Burial?

To be considered “green,” according to Ellen Newman of the Good Green Death Project and TalkDeath, a burial must adhere a few basic standards:

For the Body:

-No embalming fluid.

-Natural shrouds or compostable/recyclable “basket casket” are utilized. Youcanhave a casket, but it must be made from biodegradable materials. Remains (if in powder form) must be in a biodegradable container.

For The Gravesite:

-No grave markers. Naturally occurring markers like trees or stones are fine.

-No vaults or grave liners.

-No non-native species planted on burial grounds; no maintenance for the plants or grounds.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The 7 Stages Of Grief And How They Affect You

Grief is a horrible emotion to feel, because it means that something has happened in your life that you wish you could avoid. In most cases, it’s because of the loss of a friend, family member, pet or other loved one. But just what happens when you experience grief and what should you do about it? Understanding the 7 stages of grief will start you off right.

 

The 7 Stages of Grief

Shock & Denial

When someone first brings you that bad news it can be difficult to believe it’s even real. You want to just shake your head and say ‘no way.’ You may start to feel a little numb and may feel no pain at all at the loss because of this. The shock and disbelief are actually suspending your pain and this may last for several weeks.

Pain & Guilt

Once your shock starts to fade away you’ll start to notice the pain. This is when it first starts to hit you that your loss is real. The pain may be extremely hard to handle and it may feel physical as well as mental and emotional. You may even start to feel guilty about something that you could have done or should have done for the person (even if it’s illogical).

Anger & Bargaining

Next, many people start to feel angry. You may feel angry with your religion, with someone who was taking care of that person, with the person in the other car that hit them or anyone else. It may be completely unreasonable who you feel angry with but you seek out someone you can blame for the loss and may even attempt to bargain to bring that person back.

Depression, Reflection & Loneliness

Generally this is one of the later things to take effect. When many of your family or friends are starting to overcome their suffering or starting to think that you should be overcoming your own suffering, you start to feel depressed. Even though the pain towards the beginning is hard, this may hit you even harder, because you’re truly coming to terms with what you’re going through and the loss you’ve experienced.

You’re not feeling the pain as much as feeling the change to your life that losing this person has made. Maybe you’ve lost someone you spend a lot of time with or the person you always told secrets to. These difficulties are going to start to cause depression, reflection on the old way things were and loneliness as you realize those times are gone.

The Turn

Finally, just when you think there can’t possibly be anything good coming ever again, you’ll start to experience the turn. You’ll start to feel a little better each day. It may be so slight that you don’t even realize it at first, and you won’t feel happy all at once. What you may feel is a little less pain, a little less sadness and more of a feeling of being okay.

Reconstruction & Working Through

This is where you’ll start to work your way through the aftermath of losing that loved one. Maybe you have to take care of some financial troubles either caused by the loss or the grief you went through while dealing with the loss. Maybe you need to just put yourself back together. This is the stage where it all begins.

Acceptance

The final stage is the one you’ll be in for the rest of your life. This is the one where you start to accept the loss fully and start to move on with your life. That’s not to say you ever ‘get over it’ but that you start to feel okay about it and you’re able to think about them and even talk about them again without feeling the despair or intense pain. It may make you sad to think about them, but it may also make you happy because now you can remember and be happy about the good times.

Keep in mind that the stages of grief are different for everyone. You may only spend a few days in disbelief and your sibling may spend weeks there. You may never go through a bargaining stage while your best friend spends a lot of time with it. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and there’s no timetable for an acceptable length of time to grieve. Getting through this pain, however, can be extremely difficult to do on your own. Seeking out professional help, like what you can get from Better Help, can make a huge difference in your life and in your healing process.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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When someone hovers at the edge of death, these singers step in to ease the passage

Threshold Choir members pray before visiting a patient at the Halquist Memorial Inpatient Center in Arlington, Va.

by Debra Bruno

[I]t’s a quiet afternoon at the Halquist Memorial Inpatient Center, a hospice, as four women huddle close, talking quietly in a tight circle before walking through the doors to sing to men and women on the threshold of death.

These women are part of the Threshold Choir, a group that brings the comfort of song to dying people.

A thin woman, who is in the last weeks of life, is the choir’s first stop. She is sitting nearly upright in a hospital bed, her daughter beside her. Leslie Kostrich, the group’s leader for this day, asks the older woman if she would like to hear a few songs. She nods; the singers set up folding stools and pull up close to her bed.

“We sing in a circle of love,” the women sing, a cappella and in three-part harmony. “In music we are joined.” As they sing, the woman gazes off with a faraway look in her eyes, as if she’s trying to remember something.

The group sings another song, and as they finish, the older woman claps softly. “Thank you,” she says. “Nice.”

It takes sensitivity, situational awareness and a dash of emotional intelligence to sing to the dying. The sound of soft harmonious voices can be very comforting as life closes down, but the songs can also bring forward the immediacy of death to family members sitting nearby. Singing in such an emotional environment takes practice and a recognition that it is less a performance than a service.

For the dying and their families, the singers are hoping to bring peace, comfort and a feeling of love. “We call it kindness made audible,” says Jan Booth, who with Kostrich is co-director of the Washington-area Threshold group.

It is also very life-affirming for those who sing in this unusual choir.

“When I tell people I’m in a choir that sings at the bedside of the dying, they’ll say, ‘Oh girl, what a good thing,’ or ‘Girl, you must have lost your mind,’ ” says Kadija Ash, 66.

But the opposite is true. “Sometimes I run” to rehearsals, she says, “because of the healing.” In the two years she has been a member of Threshold, Ash says, she has gone from having a fear of death to an ability to be more accepting of life’s ups and downs.

Kostrich, 60, who has been with the group for three years, likewise says: “This has changed my life. That’s not an exaggeration. It gave my life a spiritual dimension that I was totally unprepared to receive.”

Threshold Choir — which has more than 200 groups around the world — seems to have tapped into something both primal and much-needed: a growing desire not to recoil from death or abandon the dying but to face that ultimate truth and figure out how to help ease the isolation of those near the end.

Bedside singing is a way of “normalizing death,” says Kate Munger, 68, who founded the first group in the San Francisco area 18 years ago. Many of the choirs are started and run by baby boomers, who are comfortable shaking up the accepted way of doing things, Munger says. “We’ve done that for childbirth, for education, and now for our impending death.” She says the number of people participating in Threshold Choir has grown to about 2,000.

Similar deathbed choirs have also surged, including Hallowell Singers, based in Vermont, which recently celebrated its 15th year, says founder Kathy Leo. She estimates that Hallowell has as many as 100 spinoffs, mainly in the United States.

Although they sing some requested songs, such as “Amazing Grace,” Threshold Choir mostly uses a repertoire designed for singing around a dying person. The pieces tend to be limited to just a few words, and sung without accompaniment in three-part harmony.

The idea is to keep things simple and not tied to any spiritual tradition — for instance, “Thank you for your love” and “We are all just walking each other home.” Complicated verses could intrude on the process of dying, which often involves people retreating from the day-to-day and reviewing their lives.

During the afternoon at Halquist, the four Threshold singers — Booth, Kostrich, Ash and Margo Silberstein — move out into a hallway after their first group of songs. One hospice staffer says, “I love working on Thursdays because I love listening to this group.”

The group slips into another large room with four beds separated by curtains. A frail woman with brilliant blue eyes smiles at the group. In another bed, someone is making noises that are halfway between breathing and groaning.

The blue-eyed woman asks, “Do you know ‘A Mighty Fortress?’ ” The group knows some of the words to the hymn but ends up mostly singing “oooo” to its tune. After they finish, Kostrich offers, “We do have ‘Amazing Grace.’ ” “Oh yes,” the woman answers and quietly sings along with them. After they finish, she says: “Oh, thank you. That was just wonderful.” They go on to sing “Simple Gifts” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and then a few Threshold songs.

A TV next to a different bed blares.

After they finish, they approach a man sitting at the bedside of a woman. Can they sing?

“She’s pretty well gone out, but you can try,” he says.

As they sing “Hold this family in your heart,” the man’s eyes redden. He shifts in his seat. They sing, “Rest easy, let every trouble drift away.” His chin starts to tremble. As they begin to sing “You are not alone,” the woman begins to breathe more loudly but doesn’t move. The woman in the bed across the room, where they first sang, calls out, “Beautiful!”

An hour later, as the group gets ready to leave the hospice, Kostrich says that singing with Threshold has given her a way to process her own family’s experiences with death. When her parents were dying in the 1980s, Kostrich says, no one acknowledged they were close to death, which didn’t allow her and her family to come to terms with the losses themselves. The Threshold Choir has both helped her in a small way alleviate her own loss and help others avoid that kind of pain, she says.

There’s another thing that comes out of Threshold singing: community. And that feeling is evident when group members get together for a twice-a-month rehearsal, often in a church basement in the District. All but one singer at this rehearsal is female, but they range in age from 20-somethings to 70-somethings, African American, Chinese and white, those with tattoos and those with carefully coifed hairdos. There are a lot of hugs and laughter.

Olivia Mellon Shapiro, 71, says that group members are her “kindred spirits.” When she retired from her work as a psychotherapist, she told a friend, “Now I want to sing people out in hospices,” Shapiro says. “My father sang himself out — he died singing, and I was very moved by that.” Her friend said, “Oh, that’s the Threshold Choir.”

“Now I have a new group that feels like home to me. It really does,” she says. “I’ve also always been a little afraid of death and dying, but I’ve always loved the idea of hospices. So the idea of singing people out in hospices to get more comfortable with the idea of death and dying appealed to me.”

(The group sings several times a month at Halquist in Arlington and also at Providence Hospital in Northeast D.C. through the nonprofit hospice provider Capital Caring.)

One of the singers, Lily Chang, 28, notes that the choir is helping her confront her own fears of loss.

Chang says she’s very close to her grandmother and, given her age, worries about her. “I remember telling my mom, ‘I don’t know what I would do’ ” if she died. “Thinking about it, engaging with it in different ways makes me feel better.”

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